First White Terror

The First White Terror was a wave of violent attacks that occurred across France in 1795, with the victims belonging to the Jacobin Club and other groups associated with the Reign of Terror. In Paris, the dandyish Muscadins engaged in street fighting with the sans-culottes extremists, while the Girondins of the countryside, monarchists, opponents of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and other anti-Jacobin groups carried out massacres of republican prisoners. In some places, such as Lyon, local royalist governments declared that they were in a state of insurrection against the National Convention. The name of the "White Terror" came from the white cockades worn by royalists.